In a society where parenting is expected, some of us do not have children because our partners are unable or unwilling to make babies. That's what this blog and my book, Childless by Marriage, are about. Let's talk about what it's really like.

You just can’t tell

When I was dating my first husband, one of the things that impressed me was how well he interacted with children. I’d watching him playing with other people’s kids and think what a great dad he would make. It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t have children. I never dreamed that he wouldn’t want them. It was the natural progression, right? Before we got married, we signed papers with the Catholic Church saying we would welcome children and raise them Catholic, didn’t we? Oh, I was so young.

We had been married a few years when, despite using birth control, I thought I might be pregnant. To my horror, he said that if I was, he was leaving. I was not pregnant. The marriage didn’t last long enough to find out if he might have eventually changed his mind. Perhaps after he finished college and we got a home of our own . . . But he has been married two more times, and as far as I know, he has never had any children.

Husband number two was good with kids, too, as long as he didn’t have to deal with them at home. But he made it clear before we got married that he didn’t want any more children. At least I knew how he felt about it.

If your mate seems to enjoy playing with other people’s kids, don’t assume that he wants some of his own. Talk about it. Ask him before it’s too late.

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Contact Sue Fagalde Lick

sufalick@gmail.com,
P.O. Box 755, South Beach, OR 97366

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Note: All contents copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2016. Do not duplicate or reuse this material without my permission. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that they are clearly identified and link back to the original content.